“Cardinal... you’ve returned sooner than expected.” I said loudly after Lukas came crashing through the door.

And as I said so, I turned my eyes towards my brother without letting those who watched us realise it, and I couldn’t help but let my gaze wander on his gilded Patriarch clothes, which had been enchanted by lady Tilk herself.

But what I saw when my eyes moved up to his face was his usual stoic self, without an ounce of emotion on it.

“...Guess I’ll have to deal with this myself... again.” I thought to myself.

Though, I had long gotten used to dealing with the outlying clergymen who where unhappy with the lady’s decision to appoint me as king and Daniel as the patriarch, I still preferred staying in my lane and dealing with nobility, and leaving the clergymen for Dan but he often chose to stay silent in matters that he didn’t see as important enough, which left the straightening out of the clergymen to me so, I had gotten used to doing it even though I didn’t especially enjoy it.

“But how to deal with Lukas... its not like I can treat him like the rest of the clergy...” I thought to myself, as Lukas was the previous candidate for the position of Patriarch... before Daniel came in charge that is.

So, he had quite a bit of influence remaining in the church, and with some of the nobility as well.

But I was also his king, whether he liked it or not.

“Though I am pleased with your early return, Lukas, but I hope that you haven’t rushed your duties to come back here as soon as possible?”

“Don’t worry, King Dominik, you know that I am not one to take my duties lightly—even when those duties are ones better left for the archbishops.

“Octian Chiefs are more than happy to continue things as they’ve always been, and their god still slumbers beneath the waves.

“So, I expect nothing problematic to happen with them anytime soon, and it seems that peace will last outside of the borders of our kingdom for a long time... but sadly... I can’t say the same for the inside of our nation.

“And I just want to ask a single question... a really, really simple question to both the monarchs...” He said, standing in the middle of the grand hall, and cleared his throat before talking.

...Welp here comes the screaming.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR GREAT NATION WHILE I WAS GONE?!

“I leave only for a few months, and when I return, I came back to a country that is in full rebellion?!

“Bands of bandits and vagabonds roaming in our cities and countryside, slaughtering entire villages and killing people in the streets in broad daylight! Can you buffoons do anything correct while I am away?!” He screamed, and while he wasn’t wrong, after all we had failed our duty as monarchs, he was not in a position to blame us... after all, he was the one to start everything.

“Cardinal... we are aware of the things happening outside the walls of the palace, and we are doing our best to stop them.

“But as you know, these things are delicate and take time. We can’t just send the royal army to deal with it. Unless we want to throw the country into a civil war that is.”

“So, you are going to leave our people to be slaughtered?!”

“You know that is not—”

“And what would you say we do, Cardinal Lukas?” Asked the calm voice of Daniel from my side.

He was cutting me off, but I didn’t really mind.

“Oh great, you’re finally interested, huh?” I wanted to say, but kept my mouth shut, and let him deal with it.

“We do what you are scared of doing! But the first thing we need to do is to send our assassins and spies to figure out the leaders of these vagabonds, so we can decapitate them with a swift strike!

“And while our spies figure out the people controlling these bandits, and perhaps even the hands that control the hands that control the bandits, we mobilise small amounts of troops in the larger cities and towns, and make our stance know to our people!

“Then, its just a matter of waiting until the right opportunity to strike at the bandits!” Lukas finished his proposition, and I could see scepticism in the eyes of the nobles and the clergymen, as we all knew that keeping the morale of the troops high would be a problem while asking them to strike at their own kin, but there were ones in the crowd that were more than willing to take extreme actions in extreme situations, and some others were just more trusting of Lukas.

“...What a snake he’s... it’s been nearly 2 decades since we took power, but his influence still runs deep...” I thought to myself, and turned my eyes to Daniel who was acting like he was actually considering what Lukas said, but he was only acting like he was considering what Lukas said.

“Hmm... thank you for your contribution to the debate, Cardinal Lukas, but your proposition has been rejected.”

“What?! You can’t do that without asking the council first!”

“Have you forgotten that, if both the monarchs agree on a subject, they can veto whatever decisions the council has come up with? Or do you want me to send a scholar to read out the laws of the kingdom to you while you sleep?”

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“I have not forgotten anything! But tell me, how long will you be able to ignore the obvious solution right in front of you?

“Every moment we are not acting, the nation will devolve further into chaos!” Lukas countered.

“And if we act with your plan, the nation will devolve into chaos even faster.” My brother countered Lukas back.

And they just looked each other in the eyes for a few more moments, while everyone else in the room waited for what was going to happen next, and as Lukas started opening his mouth to retort, Daniel adjourned the court.

“The court is adjourned until further notice!” Daniel said loudly, and while I could see Lukas wanted to retort badly, he knew where to stop, and moved to leave the grand hall, and he was followed by the other nobles and clergy men.

“...So, what’s the grand plan, Daniel?” I asked him, as he was quite insistent that we didn’t take any extreme actions, just like what Lukas was trying to get us to do.

“...We dispatch spies and assassins like Lukas wanted us to, but we only dispatch them to find out who the leaders of the heretics are, without mobilising any troops as to not scare the people, and forcing them to either side with the heretics or us.

“While you do that, I’ll order some of my men to infiltrate whatever groups of heretics they can find, and search for a bigger command structure that way.

“But if we do not find any person in charge of this chaos... we’ll have to wait.”

“For how long?”

“I... don’t know. But we have to. It’s her will.” He said, closing his eyes as he said the last part.

Though, I wasn’t too keen on questioning his weird connection to the lady. If he was able to commune with her, it was great.

If he wasn’t, and was just going by information she gave him before she left, less great but sill good.

“You have your orders. Go.” I said quietly, and felt a disturbance in the ambient mana around us for a moment, but that was to be expected.

Afterall, they were my eyes and fangs, it was only normal that they’d be defending me until I told them to attack.

----------------------------------------

“So... what do you think about other races Gob?”

“Umm... Gob doesn’t understand the question. What does the lord mean?”

“What I mean is do you have a dislike of them at all? Or are there races you prefer over others, or are there races you don’t like because of something about them?”

“Umm... Gob doesn’t like the how the scales of the Kobolds feel on Gob skin. They are too rough, and hurt a bit when Gob brushes past them.”

“Would you say you don’t like kobolds, or do you just not like how their scales feel?”

“Gob doesn’t mind kobolds. But their scales are annoying.”

“Well then, Gob, what about humans, elves, and the other races that live under the Solara’s, and her pantheon’s, control? Do you dislike them?”

“Umm... Gob doesn’t have any strong feelings about them. But Gob used to fear seeing adventurers before, but now Gob doesn’t feel that way after seeing the adventurers that were in the village.

“They look as scared as Gob would be if Gob was in an unfamiliar place. And they helped the lord kill the demon! So, if anything, Gob likes them more than before!”

“Good, good. Now, what about you Grok? Do you have any strong opinions on other races?”

“...Umm... no.”

“...Are you sure?”

“Err... yes?

“...If you don’t mind me asking, why are you even asking us this question? This... is nothing like how my father was chosen to become a priest!”

“Well, Grok, while a lot of deities rather have a mono-racial society, as they are more often than not easier to manage, I plan on having a poly-racial society, and I need to make sure that my first priest won’t preach about how other species are lesser than them behind my back.” I said as I looked at Grok.

Me, him, and Gob were sat in a clearing a bit away from the rest of my goblin-golem entourage, and I was just asking them a few questions to learn more about who they were, and how they viewed the world.

At first, I was unsure about Grok’s intentions of joining me on this journey to the north, and I still am, but after a bit of thinking on it, and talking with Rifu-san about how goblin culture worked, I’ve decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and decided to treat him like any of the other goblins that were priest candidates.

Was I going to make him my first priest? Hell the fuck no!

Sure, it would’ve broken the “circle of hate” or whatever, but the matter of the fact was that he and his father had tried... well, they had tried to rightfully defend their people against something they saw as an existential threat, but I doubted that their feelings against me or their old gods would change after a few days because of how their culture worked.

The easiest example I have in hand to give would be Gram trying to challenge Krone on a duel to decide who the leader of the tribe would be, of course, Gram never beat Krone, as Krone managed to summon a demon and I had to fight it, but as I beat the demon up in a... “fair” fight, I had proven myself superior to their previous god, and gained the right to become their new deity.

But from what I heard Krone was a zealous believer, and it would be simply stupid of me to assume his son wouldn’t at least be a devout believer.

So, even though most of the goblins had seen my victory as me proving to them that I was worthy of becoming their new deity, Grok probably didn’t see so. And probably some other goblins as well that lay silent about their disapproval.

But until further evidence to support my observation, I am going to try and treat Grok as equal to the other potential first priests, even though he isn’t really in the running.

And the only reason I am even trying to include him is that, if I didn’t include him any of the exercises I made with the others, it would pave the way to him being discriminated against, and perhaps re-kindle the ashes of our conflict he had extinguished long ago... not that I was too hopeful about that.

I may be not experienced, but I am not stupid.

Though I wanted to continue the conversation I was having with Gob and Grok, we had to get moving. We weren’t that far away from where the first few villages of the Terian kingdom should be, as we had been walking for 5 days now, so we could slow down our stride, but I didn’t really want to.

The faster we reach the borders of the kingdom, the more people I can potentially save!

“Well then, let’s get up and join the—”

*Snap~*

*Swoosh~*

As a twig snapped behind us, I grabbed my long sword and swinged around, expecting to see a wild monster or a pack of animals to attack us, but as I turned around... nothing happened?

“...Go and join the others, I’ll be back in a second after checking what made that noise.” I said to Gob and Grok, and they quickly went away.

Then I grabbed my short sword, and quietly approached the place where that sound came from... as quietly as a walking mass of metal could be that is.

And, unsurprisingly, hearing a giant monster approaching it, whatever made that noise tried to escape, but as soon as I heard the bushes it was hiding under rustle, I jabbed at it with my sword.

*Crack~*

Though, due to my bad handling of the weapon, instead of jabbing itself in the chest of whatever animal was hiding under the bush, my sword instead hit its... antler and broke it?

Wait, do deer even lay this close to ground when they’ve spotted potential hunters?

Curious, I pushed the bushes to the side to take a better look at what I was dealing with, and instead of seeing a monstrous deer, I saw... a deer-man?

It was wearing clothes made out of some fabric I was unfamiliar with, and it had a bow, a small quiver with a few arrows and a dagger in its waist.

And it was utterly terrified and letting out a guttural scream of terror as I was inspecting it...

Fuck almost became a cold-blooded murderer there. Good thing I am still shit at using these weapons.